Cohen
- Pronunciation
- [Co-hen]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Allternate Spellings: Coen Or Koen.Brave.
- Origin
- German
About the Name Cohen
Cohen is a Jewish-Hebrew surname meaning "priest" — descending from the Hebrew kohen, the Aaronic priestly class of ancient Israelite religion. In Jewish tradition, the surname Cohen identifies families who claim descent from Aaron (Moses's brother and the first High Priest of Israel) and who maintain certain ritual observances passed down through the Jewish priesthood. The surname is one of the most-recognized Jewish surnames globally.
Cohen's transition from surname to American first name is essentially a 21st-century phenomenon, often controversial within Jewish communities. Some Jewish religious authorities have argued against using Cohen as a first name (since it is specifically a religious-status surname rather than a personal name), while others have embraced the cultural register. Notable bearers as a surname include Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934–2016, the iconic Jewish-Canadian poet-musician whose songs "Hallelujah," "Suzanne," and "Bird on the Wire" became standards) and American physicist Andrew Cohen.
Cohen's American first-name surge is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 500 in 2000 to the US top 200 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 200 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built Jewish-cultural register from the historic priestly meaning, and the strong masculine sound. The name reads as both classical-Hebrew and contemporary American. Common nicknames Co and the rare Hen each occasionally appear; international forms include the Hebrew original Kohen, and the related Hebrew religious-class names like Levi (similarly a Hebrew tribal name turned modern given name). The name's first-name use is essentially American and recent.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Cohen
US Popularity History (2004–2025)
Annual US births named Cohen by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2025 with 1,590 boys named Cohen (boy rank #225 that year).
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Cohen Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Cohen the strongest states are Louisiana, Utah, West Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Louisiana | #108 | 480 |
| 2 | Utah | #127 | 380 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #134 | 161 |
| 4 | North Dakota | #148 | 81 |
| 5 | Mississippi | #153 | 208 |
| 6 | Alaska | #153 | 21 |
| 7 | Alabama | #157 | 351 |
| 8 | Nebraska | #157 | 161 |
| 9 | Iowa | #168 | 233 |
| 10 | South Dakota | #171 | 77 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | #810 | 131 |
| 2 | Massachusetts | #676 | 31 |
| 3 | California | #663 | 393 |
| 4 | Maryland | #491 | 97 |
| 5 | Arizona | #433 | 153 |
| 6 | Nevada | #426 | 42 |
| 7 | Florida | #415 | 391 |
| 8 | Colorado | #361 | 158 |
| 9 | Illinois | #336 | 317 |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | #322 | 330 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Cohen in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Cohen?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Cohen to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Cohen against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).